Respect
by Crazy-Lemon-Lady
Summary: Zuko tries to get Toph's respect.  Not Toko, friendship fic.


**A/N yep, another new fandom that I am joining. Don't worry other stories will continue, I just will read more then I was, or something.**

Zuko had made everyone trust him in their little group. The only one he isn't sure of exactly is Toph. Sure he was pretty sure she trusted him but respect him? Definitely not. He knew he had to do something so he decided he would try to be nice, not exactly his thing.

He walked up to Toph, who was started to set up her sleeping arrangements, "Hey, you need any help?"

She turned to him and glared at him, well the glare was above his left shoulder so it looked a little funny but still menacing. "No."

"You sure?" He sounded hopeful. She knew he was just trying to be nice put it was patronizing. She might have been blind but she wasn't helpless.

"Yeah," ok, maybe her voice was a little harsher then it should have been; but it wasn't too bad.

"Fine." He was only trying to help! She didn't have to take it the wrong way!

"Fine!" Man! Over reaction, she was just saying she didn't need help!

"Fine!" What is with this girl! Does she have to do everything herself? (Katara could have told him that yes; she did need to do everything herself.

"FINE!" He stomped away. She set up her sleeping arrangements in around 30 seconds, just using earth bending to make a tent like structure. She wandered over to where Zuko was setting up his. He had a tent set up around three fourths of the way done. He was slamming around everything and looked angry to say the least. With just a twitch of her foot the tent fell to the ground.

Zuko spun around to see Toph smirking at him. He thought he couldn't get any angrier at her until she said one thing, "Need help setting up your tent?"

The look on her face unnerved him. Most people at least got a little scared at his anger at least a little bit. She was completely calm with a trace of a smile playing across her lips.

"No." he replied imitating his tone to sort of sound like hers.

"Yes, you do." She smirked at him her eyebrows rising up under her curtain of bangs and made it look like she had no eyebrows at all.

"No I do-" He never got to finish because at that second, a pillar of rock below his tent (lying on a heap in the ground) shot into the air and threw the tent into the air and fell in front of Aang who looked up in surprise but could not see where the flying tents were coming from. In one swift movement she raised her arms and a tent like structure similar to hers grew out of the ground. Zuko scratched the back of his head sheepishly. "Uh… thanks."

"No problem," she said and actually smiled at him. When she smiled she actually looked… pretty. It was a strange sight to see, her standing there. Her hair was a mess and her clothes and face caked with dirt but she still managed to look good. Her hair was a dark shade of black that shined in the sunlight that was remaining in the day. The sunlight was tinted red, so her hair was tinted a little red too. Her eyes were milky and they didn't exactly look vacant but they were different… unique.

And then Toph completely ruined the moment by punching him, a little too hard, in the shoulder and said, "Come on."

She walked towards everyone sitting around the campfire. She turned to the little group sitting there and asked, "Did you see a tent fly through the air and land somewhere near here?"

Aang piped up then "uh, yeah but it fell directly into the fire…"

Toph fell backwards then. Zuko was a little alarmed until he say her on the ground resting her head in her hands, head facing the sky. Still looking (sort of) upwards, she said nonchalantly, "eh, I'll live"

Everyone watched as Zuko's face grew angry, "Yeah of course you'll live because it was my tent!"

Toph turned her head to where Zuko was. "Where's my thank you? You have a perfect structure that is leak proof and trust me when I say it won't have any drafts. It also took only around five seconds when yours took five minutes, and yours fell!" She turned away like she had made her point and that the conversation was now over.

Zuko obviously didn't see it that way. He look just as angry before and started telling her, "Yah cos you knocked it over! It was perfectly fine until then!"

Sokka apparently found a problem with something somewhere because he interjected, "wait, doesn't something seem wrong with this situation?"

Zuko's glare snapped to Sokka. "What? You mean other then the fact that Toph is no help at all?"

"Hey! I'll let you know if it wasn't for me Twinkle-toes here wouldn't be able to earth bend! You know how many times he's used it to save his life? If he didn't have it he would be dead and there would be no point for you and the whole world would be in turmoil! You want that? Do you want Aang dead? I know you did before but I thought now you changed!" Zuko was taken aback by this outburst. Obviously his comment struck some sort of nerve with her because besides this strange rant she was now upright and in his face. He didn't even see how she managed that. It was just flash- now she's in his face.

Sokka obviously thought he had to be the peacemaker (even though, technically, that was Aang's job) and continued on with his comment from before, "No, I meant the fact that she HELPED you. Toph never helps anybody," Toph shot him (well his ponytail) and angry glare, "Don't look at me like that! You don't and you know it!"

"Well none of you look like you need as much help as Princess here."

Well, he definitely didn't have her respect…

**A/N: This is my first Avatar fic! Do you like it? Should I keep it going as a series when Zuko keeps trying to get her respect? Let me know!**

**I'm also going to shamelessly plug my blog, it's on my profile page :)**


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